empathy

Communication Empathy is being able to recognize emotions in others, and to be able to proverbially put yourself in their shoes (Mindtools, 2016). This ends up contributing to better communication in a couple of ways. The main one is that the communication is not just about yourself, that the needs of the other people in the communication are also better understood and taken into account. This is not necessarily easy -- when you're left guessing as to what someone else is thinking you'll probably get it wrong.

But if you're good at this, you can be in a much better position to help people and give them the support that they need (No author, 2016). A time when I have had a difficult time empathisizing with someone is pretty much any time. How do I know what others are feeling or thinking? If I try to guess, I usually get it wrong. Maybe that's overthinking something, but I could not have a worse track record of this. So you just don't deal with the situation.

If I can't put myself in someone's shoes -- if I don't know what they are going through, I just don't deal. There's no point. If I can understand, then that understanding comes if I see a situation and can think of a corollary situation that I've been through. That is not perfect understanding, but it is better than nothing. If I could empathisize, I actually have no idea what I would do differently. I wouldn't know what that is like.

I'm amazed that there are people out there who can understand other people's interests and emotions just like that. So what they do, I have no idea. But not being familiar with that situation I'm not sure how I would handle it. But what can you do to emphathisze with someone. The only thing I can do is ask -- I'm not going to attempt to guess because that won't end well in my experience.

I can ask, and maybe listen to try to figure it out, and that's about the best I can do. Week 5, Discussion 1 Mastery is quite the word; I'm not sure I'd go there. But I am quite good with clarity and concision (Doyle, 2016). Those are two attributes of my communication style that seem to work well. Using simple language to ensure that ideas are conveyed effectively is a start. I like to ensure that my thoughts are finished before I present them to the world at large.

And I believe that conveying ideas is easier the less you write -- stick to the core points only. Well, I need to improve my empathy -- or any of those other soft skills. I'm told this is important and I'm not going to be very good at communication without it, so I figure I probably have to learn it. Not sure what the benefit will be -- guessing other people's emotions better? I have to wonder what the value in that actually is.

I guess you understand people better, when they don't say what they mean. So useful in a culture where people are indirect a lot of the time and have trouble being open and honest in their communications, then you have to resort of pretending you understand what's going on in other people's heads. What I've read about this does not really present a coherent, rational case for this.

Stillman (2016) argues that empathy can be practiced by talking to strangrers, by listening, and by trying to empathisize even with people with.